Bollywood playback singer Mohammad Aziz passes away

Well known Bollywood playback singer Mohammad Aziz passed away in Mumbai today. He was 64. The singer died in Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai.

Aziz, who was known for his love for Mohammad Rafi, started his musical career in Kolkata and then moved to Mumbai.

At his peak, he was considered an heir to Mohd. Rafi. He is one of the rare singers who can sing at the 7th note (saatwan sur) – example being his song, “Saare Shikawe Gile Bhulaa Ke Kaho”. Laxmi-Pyare recognized his potential very early and repeated him in a lot of their movies.

He has done playback singing for famous actors such as Amitabh Bachchcan, Govinda, Rishi Kapoor, Mithun chakraborty and several others. In Bollywood, his duets with leading female singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle, Anuradha Paudwal and Kavita Krishnamurthy have been immensely popular, the latter two in particular. His collaboration with the musical genius duo Laxmikant Pyarelal has been most successful to the extent that he was considered an heir of Mohammad Rafi at his peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Mohammed Aziz-un-Nabi was born in Ashoknagar, West Bengal. He was an ardent lover of music and Mohammed Rafi. He started singing from childhood.
Aziz made his film debut in a Bengali language film, Jyoti. He came to Mumbai in 1984, with references from a producer’s relative. His first Hindi film was Ambar (1984).

Aziz started out his musical career as a singer in the restaurant Ghalib in Kolkata. He got a break when the music director Anu Malik got him to sing the song Mard Taangewala for the movie Mard, starring Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan. People thought it was a Shabbir Kumar’s song and the song became a hit and Aziz became a popular singer, and was patronised by leading music directors including Kalyanji-Anandji, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Rahul Dev Burman, Naushad, O. P. Nayyar, Bappi Lahiri, Rajesh Roshan, Raamlaxman, Ravindra Jain, Usha Khanna, Anand-Milind, Nadeem-Shravan, Jatin Lalit, Anu Malik, Damodar Raao, Anand Raj Anand and Aadesh Shrivastava.

Aziz worked in the Odia film industry and sung several Odia bhajans, private albums, and Odia film songs since 1985. Some of his Odia bhajans (Lord Jagannath’s Bhajans) are famous. He has performed stage shows in India and abroad, and has been nominated twice for best male playback singer award. Mohd. Aziz was very close to Laxmikant Pyarelal; After Laxmi-Pyare, his career went down and other music directors took to other singers such as Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan.